


happenstance

by apolliades



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Slash, but i guess it's applicable :(, uhhhh i guess... i hate using that tag for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8508166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolliades/pseuds/apolliades
Summary: Remus realised he was staring, but the boy on the step was staring at him, too.(or: when sirius ran away to the potters' house, and james wasn't there, but someone else was.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really know why i wrote this i uhhhh.. it kind of just popped into my head and wouldn't go. so just.. just take it, go on, just take it

At sixteen, after more than five long years of friendship, Remus was more than accustomed to wandering down his street to James’ house on Sunday mornings, and letting himself in. What he was not accustomed to was getting there and finding the Potters’ car gone and the front step occupied by a dishevelled teenage boy.  

Instinct made Remus anxious — his chest tightened right away with the fear that something terrible had happened. He pushed the feeling aside as best he could, tried to catch the breath that had briefly been stolen from him. The boy didn’t seem to have noticed him; his head was bowed, and his hair was long and dark, shielding his face. He was lighting a cigarette, and Remus could pick out the ends of several others smouldering on the step by his feet. Feet in heavy black stomper boots, the type that looked made for kicking in doors. Or skulls. 

“Where’s James?” asked Remus, when the stir of anxiety in his stomach insisted he break the silence.  

Startled, the boy dropped his cigarette, and his head shot up, and Remus realised he wasn’t so unfamiliar after all. He’d seen him once or twice before, in pictures more than in person. There was a polaroid, he was fairly certain, on James’ bedroom wall, with him in it, but the grinning mouthful of white teeth and sparkling grey eyes were a far cry from what he was looking at now. 

This boy looked tired — exhausted, more accurately. There were deep purple shadows beneath his eyes, which were red, though his cheek were dry. Like he’d had to fight very hard not to cry, and only just managed it. His mouth, pretty though it was, didn’t look like it had ever smiled in its life. The most notable difference of all, though, was the bright red bruise that was blossoming across one side of his face, only partially hidden by his hair.  

Remus realised he was staring, but the boy on the step was staring at him, too. 

“I— I don’t know,” the boy said with a shrug, once he’d regained his composure a bit. His voice was a little hoarse, but his accent was surprisingly smooth, and the phrase it put, oddly, into Remus’ head was _good breeding._ It was the sort of accent that rang of wealth, private education; of things like Latin textbooks and hunting lodges. Not bovver boots and tattered leather jackets. “I tried to ring him but no one picked up, so I just…”  

The boy shrugged again, then lowered his gaze to the step, and retrieved his cigarette. Remus stood on the other side of the gate, and watched him.  

And then the realisation hit him, and all at once he felt incredibly stupid for not making the leap sooner.  

“Sirius Black,” he said, with just a hint of triumph at his spectacular detective work. This time his words made the boy flinch, visibly, though he managed to keep his cigarette in his fingers. Good thing, too, because this time it was lit.  

“What?” the boy’s voice was sharp — unexpectedly so. Remus’ brow drew in to the beginnings of a frown, but he persevered. 

“You’re Sirius, aren’t you? We met, at James’ birthday last year.”  

The boy’s expression went from guarded to puzzled. His eyes narrowed in Remus’ direction, like he was having to concentrate very hard to try to remember him. Remus felt his gaze follow the scars on his face — or maybe he was only imagining that, out of habit. Either way, it didn’t make him want to avert his eyes, anymore, and that was something.  

“Very briefly,” Remus elaborated. It _had_ been briefly. And Sirius had seemed to be so vividly drunk Remus wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t remember him. They’d only spoken for about thirty seconds anyway, when James introduced them, and at some point during the night Sirius had mysteriously vanished. “And James talks about you quite a lot.” 

The boy seemed to relax a bit, then. His shoulders slumped, and he put his cigarette back into his mouth. He was sitting on a suitcase, Remus noticed curiously.  

“Oh,” he exhaled a mouthful of smoke, dully. Remus could almost smell it, even from the bottom of the path. It was just a little bit sweet, and kind of woody — underneath the overwhelming ashy staleness that just about cancelled out any potential niceness, though. “Yeah, I’m Sirius,” said Sirius, and he didn’t exactly sound pleased about it.  

A moment passed, during which Remus stood, on one side of the gate, and Sirius sat, on the other, and smoked his cigarette. It shook a little bit in his fingers, Remus noticed, though Sirius didn’t seem to. He wondered if it was the cold doing that, or something else. Something like the bruise on his cheek, maybe. Remus sucked his bottom lip between his teeth.  

“Are you alright?” he asked, putting his hands onto the top of the gate. The wood was slightly damp under his fingers, and he dug a nail in between the grain, picking at it. The situation suddenly felt deeply uncomfortable. What was he doing, just standing there? He didn’t know what else to do, though. Go home and leave this boy to wait for James in peace? Sirius hadn’t said a word since he confirmed who he was, neither indicating that he wanted to be left alone or otherwise. He hadn’t so much as looked at Remus, in fact. Just sat there and smoked his cigarette, slowly, in silence. 

Sirius’ answer was a slow, heavy nod, with his grey eyed gaze still fixed on the paving stones beneath his boots. He was actually kind of stunningly good looking, Remus noted, even with the bruise and the tired out eyes and the tightness of his jaw. Good looking in a kind of elegant, graceful way; beautiful, rather than boyishly charming in the way that James was.  

Remus shifted his weight uncomfortably, and didn’t say anything. He was on the very verge of turning around and just going, because he was beginning to realise exactly how out of his depth he was, here, and how useless it was of him to just _stand_ there — when it started to rain. Slowly, at first. A drop on the back of his hand. One running down his neck and making him shiver. He looked up, to where the dark clouds that had been resting threateningly on this horizon when he left the house had drawn in and were looming above him now, leaking, almost ready to burst.  

He heard Sirius swear, and looked down to see him pulling his jacket tighter about himself, turning up the lapels around his chin and hunching up his shoulders. He wasn’t looking at Remus.  

“Sirius,” Remus began, a little hesitantly. “D’you want to come to mine?” 

Sirius looked up at him from where he was busy stuffing a box of cigarettes into his jacket pocket, to keep it dry. His expression was a kind of strange one, that Remus was struggling to read; his mouth was kind of twisted up, lips pressed tight against his teeth, his dark brows were pulled close together, and his nose wrinkled slightly. _Strained_ was one word for it, maybe. “What?”  

“Just because — it’s raining. It’s going to get worse in a minute.” It already was, actually — as he spoke, it was gathering speed. Raindrops falling with real vigour, now. The Potters’ garden path was starting to change colour as the stone soaked it in. “My house is only up the road.”  

Sirius was quiet for a moment, expression cryptic enough that Remus was left wondering whether he was actually considering it or just trying to figure out how to turn him down nicely. Not that he really looked the type to worry about saying no _nicely._   

But then he got up — heaved himself up, with a soft exhale, as if it took a lot of effort. Rain was starting to run in rivulets off the shoulders of his jacket, and dampen the ends of his hair, making it curl. He had nice hair. Thick, and shiny, even if it looked unbrushed.  

“Okay,” he said, surprisingly quietly. Remus blinked. He’d almost been expecting to be told to bugger off, for some reason. As he watched, Sirius bent to pick up his suitcase — it was fairly small, and didn’t look all that heavy, though its contents bulged against the material in places — and it was only when he was halfway up the path that Remus had the sense to snap back into himself and open the gate. Sirius didn’t quite look at him as he moved past.  

“I’m Remus,” he half blurted, when they’d been walking along the pavement together in silence for a good minute and a half: long enough for him to realise he hadn’t introduced himself. James _had_ introduced them, last year, but all three of them had been at least some level of intoxicated then, and Sirius hadn’t seemed to remember him at all. Remus didn’t really mind, though. Discounting the unusually torn up state of his face, he knew he wasn’t particularly memorable.  

Sirius, who had been looking at the ground, looked at him then. Once again Remus imagined he was tracing the scars, like everyone did. Some people stopped eventually — James and Peter didn’t seem to see them anymore, nor James’ parents — but some always seemed drawn back to them, no matter how often they looked. Remus couldn’t pretend it wasn’t still a bit unpleasant. But it wasn’t so bad as when they’d been new, at least.  

Then Sirius’ eyes found Remus’ own, and just for a second he gave him a hint of a smile. Just a hint, and just a ghost of the grin in the photograph. But Remus could see the resemblance, at least. And it was more than enough to make him smile back.  

“Hello, Remus,” Sirius said. It was raining in earnest by then, running down Sirius’ cheeks in streams, dripping off his chin, clinging to his lashes so that when he blinked it looked like tears. For that moment they smiled at one another, and then they walked the rest of the way, in quiet. 

\---

James came bursting into Remus’ living room a couple of hours later, breathless, eyes huge behind glasses which sat askew on his nose, hair so messy even for him that it had to count as some sort of personal best. (His left wrist sported a brand new plaster cast; he explained later that he’d tripped down the stairs in the small hours of the morning, glasses-less on the way to the bathroom, and broken it. As she drove him to A&E, his mother had threatened to install a safety-gate at the top of the stairs, or tape his glasses to his face before bed, he told them, grinning.) 

He’d had his mouth already open before he was through the door, already full of apologies and _are you okay_ s and _what happened_ s, but snapped it shut again before he’d barely gotten a syllable out.

A fire was crackling quietly in Remus’ fireplace; it was the only sound in the entire house, other than Sirius’ soft, even breathing. He was quite asleep on the sofa, boots off, legs tucked up to his chest, with his head on Remus’ shoulder, looking for all the world like he belonged there. Like he’d fallen asleep there a thousand times. A pair of empty mugs sat on the floor by Sirius’ discarded boots, and Remus had a book open in his lap, and a finger pressed to his lips to hush James as soon as he entered. 

It wasn’t quite enough, though. As James stood, and Remus sat, both in silence, Sirius stirred back into consciousness, blinked his eyes open and squinted up at him through the curtains of his hair. He looked dazed, and drowsy, and frowned a little bit, as though he couldn’t quite remember where he was. The confusion of sleep still hung about him, like a fog, clearing slowly. 

“Well,” James said, brightly, once he decided Sirius looked conscious enough to be coherent. He clapped his hands together, regretted it when it sent shooting pains up his broken wrist, but soldiered bravely on. “I don’t suppose I need to introduce the two of you, then. Looks like you managed to get pretty well acquainted without me.”  

To Remus’ quiet, private delight, when he looked down at Sirius, he was blushing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a little bit extra i thought up and didn't feel needed a fic of its own, to be inserted between the two of them heading to remus' & james' arrival. :-)

By the time they reached the house, the pair of them were thoroughly soaked. 

Remus had it worse, because he was the idiot who'd neglected to wear a coat; Sirius' leather jacket was glistening wet, shining as if polished by the rain. Remus' cardigan, on the other hand, was saturated, and heavy, and made him look like a drowned rat. As he unlocked the front door, he was starting to shiver. 

When he stepped inside Sirius tensed, visibly. He was expecting -- a parent, maybe, or some other occupant of the house that might appear and object to his presence. Or ask who he was. Or even just say hello. The weight of the previous night was heavy on his shoulders, and his case felt heavy in his hand. He hadn't slept in something approaching thirty hours. If he had to face anyone else, he was fairly sure he'd shatter into pieces. 

"It's just us," Remus said then, as if he'd somehow known exactly what Sirius had been thinking. "My parents are away."

The _don't worry_ was unspoken, but Sirius heard it, nonetheless. He nodded his understanding, and dumped his suitcase heavily at the foot of the stairs. 

Because they were both dripping on the carpets, Remus darted upstairs and fetched towels, and came back wearing a dry jumper. He knelt in front of the fire and poked around with a box of matches ’til he got it lit, then left Sirius there — “To put the kettle on”. So he was that kind of boy, Sirius thought. That kind of English. The kind who lived up to the stereotype and actually made tea as soon as he entered a building. It was kind of endearing. 

Sirius drank his black and sweet; Remus’ was milky and sugarless. 

When he remerged with mugs, Sirius had shed his jacket and his boots and was standing with uncharacteristic awkwardness in the middle of the room, watching the fire flicker ’til the light started to burn into his retinas. 

“You can sit,” Remus told him, brows drawn together slightly, with just the corner of his mouth twitching, like something was funny, but he didn’t want to let on. Sirius didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or annoyed, so he just sat. The situation was so fucking odd that he was struggling to dwell on the full force of fleeing his family home in the middle of the night, though, so. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe it was a blessing. 

On a normal day, Sirius Black would never have sat in the home of a stranger and kept his mouth shut. On a normal day, Sirius Black was full of clever conversation, loquacious as they came, could befriend just about anyone so long as he didn’t actively hate them. But this wasn’t a normal day. Today, tiredness and anxiety and burnt out frustration had sewn up his mouth, and Remus didn’t seem to be the most forthcoming in the world (in actual fact, he could simply sense a certain fragility about the boy beside him, was afraid to push) either, and so they sat in silence. 

Eventually, Remus murmured something about homework, and went to fetch a book. Sirius didn’t say anything; he didn’t mind. The sound of pages turning was actually kind of soothing. When he glanced over, Remus had just the very tip of his tongue in between his teeth, and his eyes — green, he noticed for the first time — were very very focused. 

As he sat there on the sofa, in a strange house, with a strange boy, with a warm mug held in his hands and a warm fire in front if him, some of the tension of the previous night seemed at last to ebb from Sirius' bones. It was a slow thing, a gradual thing, that you'd have to really be looking for to notice. A shift in his posture, a subtle change in his expression. Some of the tightness unknitting from around his mouth, his brow, his shoulders. The sofa was old, and a little worn, but the cushions were soft, and sinking back into them was easy. Closing his eyes was even easier. 

Unconsciously seeking out the warmth of Remus beside him in his sleep? That was easy, too.


End file.
